somewhere under the sky

a return

on bbcmundo's homepage for today one of the featured videos is entitled "flying penguins." interested, i clicked on the video and was amazed at the images of penguins flying. after 10 seconds of video, you find out the bbc has a sense of humor; the video is a farce. happy april fools, don't i feel foolish.

i'm back in ecuador. it's wonderful to be back, in fact much more than i was expecting. one of the factors that plays a major role in my love for this region of the world is, of course, nostalgia. as soon as we landed in the quito airport, memories of the other two times i have been came to me, and as soon as we were on a bus, i realized how familiar to me this region is. i have ridden many, many, many hours on a buses through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, and when i think of Latin America, i think of two things: the bus, and the campo. the images that come to me from the bus, the layout of the cities, the entrances to small towns, the architecture of the houses of the rich, the half-built houses with money from remittances, the houses of the poor, street vendors, shops, and of course, the Andes, all these images are so familiar to me now and this familiarity was what i found a little weird-that another world, because it is a totally different world, should be so familiar to me. the campo is the countryside where peasants and indigenous farmers live. the sight of the campo in the Andes and the smell, whatever that smell is, has made its mark on my heart and i cannot think of anywhere more peaceful in the world.

i hope to have some excellent stories and information to share, i will be keeping the blog up regularly.

posted by leah v @ 4:23 PM